The GOP and Tina Turner: What’s Love Really Got To Do With It?

This is based on a True Story… partially.
Tina Turner is one of America’s great icons of the music industry. She has wowed fans for decades with her unique sound and high energy performances. Tina’s story is one of triumph over tragedy. Although there is a popular book and a blockbuster movie about her life, I think it is very important that America revisit her story for just a moment.

Though her beginnings were humble and modest, with hard work she became a legitimate star. Tina was loved by her many fans and as an entertainer, she was in huge demand. She seemed to have it all; a happy family, beautiful home, wonderful children and she was a star. Tina Turner lived a life that many could only dream of. At least this was the way things appeared to be.
In reality her life was only half dream, it was also half nightmare. Despite all outward appearances, behind closed doors Tina was struggling. Her husband had a major drug problem which was worsening over the years. He was also a womanizer and a wife beater. Although she loved him and wanted to keep her family together, she suffered through his beatings for many years. Eventually after much physical and emotional abuse and a suicide attempt, she finally divorced him.
This is the story of a victim of obvious abuse. The story of a person who refused to accept the reality of her situation, opting instead to believe in things based on how she wanted them to be. This made it very easy for her to believe the empty promises and threats that her abuser kept making to her. Promises like:
1. Things are going to get better now.
2. This will never happen again.
3. Things are not as bad as they seem.
4. If you leave me things will only get worse for you.
5. And the age-old guilt trip of ‘after all that I’ve done for you’
The evidence of his womanizing was mounting and his inability to truly love her in a healthy way was becoming undeniably apparent to her, yet she still could not let go of her fantasies. Maybe it was because she was a woman who believed in loyalty. Loyalty is normally a very honorable quality, but when incorrectly applied it can be the main ingredient in a recipe for disaster – such was the case in Nazi Germany in WWII. Eventually pain forced her to abandon the fantasy world (a world where things were the way she wanted them to be). Now she had to face reality (a reality where things are just what they are). Tina Turner’s pain was tremendous as she walked away from her husband, her home, her career and everything that she knew. One can only imagine the fear that she must have faced in making this decision. But as her story continues we see that she survived her fears and the uncertainty of her future. She held onto the belief that “Although I may not know what lies ahead of me, I do know what lies behind me and anything has to be better than that.”
Tina Turner went on to re-establish herself as an even bigger superstar and began to realize true happiness in her life.

So the moral of this story is:
1. Loyalty is a good thing provided a person is living in reality and not some fantasy world. Fantasies are Peter Pan’s department.
2. We can take our heads out of the sand take an honest look at the truth about our lives – often times we’ll discover that everyone else already knew the truth anyway.
3. Facing our fears is a painful concept but not facing them is even more painful.
4. These are the steps that we must take in order to move toward to true growth, progress and happiness.

We are at the point of my story that asks the question: “What the hell does any of this have to do with the GOP?”

When you take a look at the state of our nation after eight years of their leadership and the ‘never say die’, gung-ho loyalty of today’s GOP members, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure this one out.